by Gabi Moore
We sat together for a while, silent except for my heart pounding in my ears.
“What form will my discipline take?” I asked. I searched his face. Was I doing this right? And what the fuck were we doing anyway? The words seemed straight from a cheesy 80s porn film and yet …the moment was heavy with sexual tension. Chemistry was one thing, but there was something else going on here. A slow, strange reaction that didn’t explode but only burned and smoldered. Something that was way hotter and more dangerous than it looked.
His touch softened on my hands again and he cocked his head to one side to look at me.
“Your hair’s pretty, by the way.”
“Thank you.”
“Your punishment, well, yes, I’ve been thinking about that…”
I wondered if it was even worth it to try and talk to him again. To apologize. Maybe marriage counselling. Maybe he could take some time off work and we could go on a trip together, just the two of us, and really hash things out. I could explain myself. Everything thing would be fine again.
Or, we could carry on with this train smash.
He drew back and pulled something out of his jacket pocket, then placed it on the table squarely between us. It was my diary. The place on my fingertips where he had caressed me suddenly went cold.
“That’s mine,” I said, trembling in my voice. How in God’s name had he found it? I suddenly felt sick.
“Yes, and all the nasty little stories in there are yours, too,” he said quietly. The air hung all around us, thick and silent.
“I’m sorry…” I said, but he snatched up the book and began reading loudly from one of the pages.
“Yesterday, I think I finally discovered my absolute limit. A nine-inch cock sounds like a lot of fun, but I can barely walk today. I think he must have broken my pelvis. Ten out of ten. Todd’s at work late this evening, of course,” he said, adding a nasty sneer to the last sentence.
“Todd, please.”
“I got the delivery guy to finger me in the hall. He said he’d come back some other time, when he wasn’t on the clock, which I thought was pretty rude. Four out of ten.”
My face was on fire.
“Todd, please don’t do this.”
He slammed the pages shut and flung the book on the table again, and looked at me. I looked away.
“Am I going to be punished for that too? For this new crime?” I said, mockingly. I wasn’t even sure if the punishment or the lack of it would be worse at this point.
“New? Oh no, this isn’t a new crime Natasha.”
“What do you mean?”
“This shitty little book? I’ve known about it for years. In fact, I first discovered it about a week after you wrote the first entry.”
My mouth hung open.
“But how-- “
“Again, details. It’s not important now. This book?” he said, flicking it with his fingers, “this book is not the crime, it’s the punishment.”
“I don’t understand.”
He smiled.
“I’m nowhere near done with you yet. Tell me something, Natasha, the things you wrote in this book …you enjoyed them all, didn’t you?”
My throat felt dry.
“Well that’s a loaded question, it’s a complicated thing, when you think about it…”
“Yes or no?” he snapped.
“It’s not as simple as that, it’s not a--”
“Yes or no?” he asked. His voice echoed in the red dining room.
“Yes! Fine, are you happy now? Yes, I fucking enjoyed it, of course I did,” I said, and felt the first pricks of humiliated tears.
He smiled.
“Good, that’s all I was asking. No need to lose your temper. Now, let me explain how this is going to happen. This isn’t your book anymore, it’s mine.”
“Yours?”
“Mine. Let’s say we’re going to turn over a new leaf. You can hide it wherever you like, I don’t care, but from now on, I’m the only one who writes anything in it. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Now, I haven’t punished you to my satisfaction yet. But I will soon. Whatever I write in this book, becomes real for you. You will read it, and follow the words written there to the letter. Do you understand?”
I nodded.
“You have no choice but to follow everything as it’s written in the book. You already know what will happen if you disobey. You’re hell-bent on being a complete and utter slut …well, I’m going to write that story for you now. I can’t seem to stop you. You’re a cheating whore and can’t be redeemed, but at least from now on, you’ll cheat in the way I tell you to.”
I had never done any of this kinky master slave shit before. It just wasn’t my style. The men I was used to could never pull it off, anyway. Not like this. I had to hand it to him – bossy and domineering was a good look on him.
“Any questions?” he asked. I shook my head.
“Good. Now open it up and read the latest entry.”
With shaking hands, I picked up the book. The red dining room had been done in a minimalist Balinese style, all black wood and deep scarlet on the walls. My hands were pale. I tried to remind myself that whatever was in these pages, I didn’t have to do any of it. I could leave. At any time. I was free to walk out of this pretty red and black room, out of this cruel game of his, and out of this life. But a part of me wanted to read it anyway.
I opened the cover and flicked to the newest entry. It was short, and done in his tight, aggressive handwriting. I could recognize his slashed Ys and Gs anywhere.
“Read it out aloud,” he said.
I cleared my throat and tried to speak without cracking my voice.
“Today, I agreed to sell my pussy to the highest bidder.”
I shot him a look.
“Keep reading.”
“Todd decided he was sick of me not pulling my weight and wanted me to make myself useful. And since all I’m good for is fucking, he suggested I service two of his associates, who’ve agreed to pay $50 000 to fuck me…”
My voice trailed off, stuck on the figure. I couldn’t believe what I was reading.
“I didn’t tell you to stop” he said, voice ice cold. I cleared my throat again and forced myself to keep reading.
“If I’m any good, Todd will make me do it again. I’m his, but I can’t wait for his friends to use me. I’m going to try my hardest to do everything I’m told. Luckily, I’m used to having many different men fuck me, so it should be easy. I can’t wait.”
I stopped reading, closed the book and stared down at the table, feeling as though I might faint. Or laugh. Or both.
“This is crazy,” I said quietly.
“Yes, it is. And you’re going to do it anyway,” his voice a low growl.
“You haven’t really …have you Todd? Found someone to …” I couldn’t finish my sentence.
“To fuck you? Oh yes. As you well know, it’s not that hard, actually. With your rather forgiving tastes, I’m sure you’ll enjoy who I’ve picked out for you, but if you don’t …then all the better.”
My life had become a strange movie. A weird, never-ending scene where people said bizarre things and smiled while they did it.
“Who are they? Who are these men?” I asked. With horror I realized that my voice sounded breathy and excited. He grinned.
“That’s not for you to question. Your job, as you see in the diary, is just to do as you’re told. Everything you’re told.”
The word ‘everything’ fell from his lips like a kind of irresistible poison. What was everything? Wasn’t this far enough? I had cheated, he had caught me cheating, and now he was going to get revenge and then we were going to live happily ever after. Except those last two things would happen together. Everything. All at once. When would I be fully absolved? Ever? And what about him, was he just a poor sweet innocent multi-millionaire with a badly behaved trophy wife?
“I’d love to,” I said finally, and my voice felt s
tronger. He wouldn’t likely suggest anything I wouldn’t have done myself. In fact, I always wanted to dare him to just try and embarrass me. He would only humiliate himself. Fine, it was settled. How far would I go? As far as necessary, to make a point. He was the wealthier, the more influential. He had more, knew more. But so what?
I stood up and moved over to his side of the table. I was sick of having these monumental discussions with furniture between us. I wanted to be in the pool. Naked. Just him and me. I’d be his dirty little slut and he’d be my angry husband and it’d be cheesy but if he needed that, I could go with it. I placed a hand on his chest and stroked him, then leaned down for a kiss. His kiss in return was surprisingly hesitant.
As I bent forward, my breasts hung low in my blouse and I wished, just wished he would reach out and touch me. He sat rigid. His kiss was strange.
“Is this ok…?” I asked.
He said nothing.
I peered down into his lap and saw the answer I really needed. The fabric of his suit trousers stretched and pulled, gathering in a bulbous point nearly halfway down his thigh. Todd was a well hung guy. The first time we fucked, I made a joke about how unfair it must have seemed to other men that he was good looking, wealthy, and blessed in the dick department. I remember like it was yesterday, how he had replied to me: “It’s more unfair now that I have you.”
I snaked my hand down and teased at the edge of his erection, but his kiss went even more limp in my mouth. His breathing was strange. My hand went further down and I closed careful fingers around the width of him. Instantly, he shrank. It was like my touch was an evil spell and his body deflated right in front of me.
“You’re the only one I’ve ever really wanted Todd,” I whispered, not sure where such a sentiment came from. I kissed him again, and with more urgency, but he was pulling away.
“I’m so sorry, Todd, I really am. I want things to be different between us, I’ll do anything you want, just tell me what you need.”
It’s like I could feel his spirit inside him shrivel and contract, pulling away from me. His body was there, but it was just a shell. He froze, his hard-on completely gone.
“I need you to not talk like that,” he said plainly.
“Like what? I’m sorry…”
“Stop apologizing.”
He stood up and shrugged me off, and I staggered to catch my balance again.
“Todd I don’t understand. What are we doing?”
He looked at me. Really took his time looking me up and down, and I could almost feel the speed of his thoughts.
“I don’t know,” he said softly. “I don’t know what we’re doing. But I don’t want to discuss it. You broke my heart, Natasha.”
It was the last thing I expected him to say.
“But that will never happen again. You had countless chances to apologize. We could have been a different kind of couple, we could have done this differently, maybe a year or two ago. But it’s too late now.”
I had never seen him looking so defeated. Todd was never sad about anything, not really. But what I saw briefly on his face was somehow worse: disappointment.
“Todd, I’m scared,” I said. Again, no idea where that came from.
His face brightened.
“Good.”
Chapter 10 - Natasha
“It doesn’t matter how many carbs you eat, Jen, it just comes down to calories.”
“It’s not as simple as that. There’s a lot that goes into it. Hormones and stuff, different metabolisms. I just don’t process carbs like some people do.”
“Bullshit, a calorie is a calorie.”
I was with ‘the girls’ on one of our notorious brunch crawls, and we were onto talking about food and diets, because that’s what we always did. While our husbands sit in board rooms and wrangle the bottom line, we sit here in expensive cafes and talk diet, but with fat, carbohydrate and protein grams instead of dollars. But really, it’s all the same thing. Two sides of the same ugly coin.
On one hand: as many variations of eggs benedict and mimosa cocktails as your heart could ever desire, and in any quantity. On the other hand: your pert ass. Getting a rich man to marry you is easy. Getting him to stay married to you is where the work starts. Not like these women had the best track records, but we all knew that at the very least, our end of the bargain was to stay skinny, no matter what.
Tight walking that fine line was work. I know you’ll think the women I’m about to describe sound a little, shall I say, silly. But the next time you see people like me and my friends out somewhere, I promise you, we’re working. Just not in all the usual ways. We smile. We soothe our nerves with alcohol.
“That mimosa has like, twenty grams of sugar in it,” said Jen. “No different from eating a cookie. Or just, like, mainlining the sugar” This week, she was recommitting to her low carb plan and preaching at us for eating wheat.”
“Bullshit,” said Abby. This week, Abby was on an intuitive eating binge, ‘healing her gut flora’ and preaching at us to not cut out any food groups.
“Natty, you’re quiet, what’s eating you?” Jen said.
Whining about your waistline is only fun when everyone in the group is doing it. But I couldn’t. My mind was all over the place.
“I’m sorry. I just …I’m doing this cleanse and I’m a little foggy I guess,” I offered lamely.
All three of them gave me concerned looks. Jen was married to a famous actor (I won’t tell you who, you’ll freak out) and had a couple of kids and her own handbag boutique she never visited. Abby was a part time model who met her property developer husband at her book launch about growing up poor in Colombia. Annie was the youngest of us, not quite a fully vetted member of our brunch group and still in that philanthropical phase of her rags to riches story. In their own way, these women knew me inside out.
“Honey, don’t talk crap, we can see something’s bugging you,” said Abby.
I slumped back in my seat and sipped my cocktail.
“Is it that obvious?”
“Uh huh. Come on, you look miserable. Spit it out, what’s up?”
I sighed again and looked at the trio of painted, concerned faces.
“Well ...it’s just …Todd hasn’t been home in like a week.” Like synchronized swimmers, they all cocked their heads in unison. Abby sat up straight and got ready to pep talk me, because that’s kind of her thing.
“Honey, the first time Brad did that to me, I thought I was going to die. Did you guys have a fight?”
“Not a fight exactly…”
Jen jumped in. “Sweetie, if you want to take advantage of the fabulousness of the advice we’re super qualified to give you here, you have to give us all the gory details. Don’t worry, we’ve all been there…” she said, playfully drunk.
“Ok fine. It’s actually …it’s worse than just a fight.”
“How worse?”
“Ugh, I can’t say.”
“Don’t be silly. A sex thing? A cheating thing?” Jen said.
I frowned.
“Kind of. Maybe both of those things.”
The synchronized swimmers leaned in, ready to hear a bit of scandal.
“I’ve been cheating on Todd,” I breathed, and waited for them to chastise me. But they just waited for me to get to the important part of the story.
“And…?”
“And he found out.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. But he’s …he doesn’t want to talk about it. He’s not himself these days…”
They all three leaned back. They knew I was a little …sexually exuberant. And honestly, this was a story they were all well familiar with. Well, perhaps my story was a little different.
“Honey, you have to clean up your act,” Abby said. “You have to be really repentant. Relationships can survive cheating. But you have to show remorse.”
“I did!”
“He’s still mad?”
“I …I don’t know what he is. It’s kind of like
he wants to punish me now, you know?”
Jen was nodding in agreement. Her and her husband fought more often than she changed her diet plan.
“But that’s kind of a good sign. It means he’s still invested in the relationship. He hasn’t unilaterally gone to divorce, so that’s a good thing.”
“No, I guess he hasn’t. But then, like how long will it go on for? He won’t respond to any of my messages, nothing.”
“You say cheating. How bad are we talking?” Abby asked, throwing back the last of her margarita.
“Bad. Really bad.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, really. He uh …it was kind of a caught red-handed thing.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah.”
I took another big sip myself. It was a beautiful day. A hint of grey on the horizon but it would probably only rain long after we were indoors and started the shopping section of the afternoon.
“He wants to …like, he’s made it into this weird sex thing.”
“Go on.”
I had their attention now.
“It’s hard to explain. Like, he’s gone all dominant on me. Like, he keeps going on and on about giving me my punishment…”
All three of their eyes widened.
“Oh, honey, you should have said.”
“He’s not himself, you know? Like, I think he’s actually enjoying it. He’s getting off on humiliating me or something. Now he wants me to …do all these things. It’s crazy, I don’t know, I’ve already said too much.”
The protests from around the table were swift. They wanted all the details, immediately. Gingerly, I opened up to them about the kitchen boy, and Todd catching us. About Todd pushing me into the pool. About my mystery date with the two mystery men he had picked out. I even told them about the ‘gift’ of the silver dildo. They listened with rapt attention.
“Well, fuck me. You really should have said, Natty. That’s quite a predicament you’re in,” Jen said eventually, when I had told my sordid tale.
“Has he made you sign a contract, like what’s-his-name in that book?” said Annie, speaking up for seemingly the first time that afternoon.